Media Diplomacy and `Peace Talk'

Abstract

Assuming that the media were caught `unprepared', linguistically at least, by the peace processes in recent years; and that the current media discourse is not sufficient to understand, report and interpret such processes, a discourse analysis was conducted of media coverage of the peace processes in the Middle East and Northern Ireland. The results disclose strategies of peace coverage, their structures and characteristics. The analysis of these strategies and its conclusions emphasize the need to update the media research and development agenda, so as to include the creation of a peace-related media discourse.

The idiosyncratic language of Israeli ‘peace’: A Cultural Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CCDA)

“…The first concerns research on Israeli peace narratives (Biton and Salomon, 2006;Hermann, 2001;Salomon, 2004;Yadgar, 2003Yadgar, , 2004Yadgar, , 2006. The second refers to the rich research on peace and media frames (Michelson, 1993;Shinar, 2000). The third perspective deals with peace metaphors (Bridgeman, 2000;Gavriely-Nuri, 2010;Yadgar, 2003).…”

“…Within this field, many studies focus on political and psychological aspects of the peace process (Barak, 2005;Inbar, 2000;Maney et al, 2006) as well as on the short-and long-run socio-political outcomes of peacemaking (Arian, 1995;Reznik et al, 1996). Intense debate surrounds the issue of peace education (Bar-Tal, 1998;Yablon, 2007) and peace journalism (Mandelzis, 2003;Shinar, 2000Shinar, , 2004. During the last decade, the issue of reconciliation has motivated new research (Bar-Siman-Tov, 2004;Maoz, 2000;Shamir and Shikaki, 2002).…”

The Return of Media Diplomacy: Examples from Kosovo

“…Media diplomacy implies the role of the media in international communications and relations (Cohen, 1986;Lim, 2017;Shinar, 2000), "where officials use the media to communicate with actors and to promote conflict resolution" (Gilboa, 2001, p. 1). The media is used as a channel to convey diplomatic messages from state actors to foreign state actors and audiences to achieve specific results.…”

“…Public diplomacy is an instrument state and non-state actors use to understand foreign audiences' cultures, attitudes, and behaviors and influence and mobilize them for profit purposes (Gregory, 2011). Media diplomacy is when state actors use the media to gain international political and strategic benefits (Cohen, 1986;Shinar, 2000). Meanwhile, media-broker diplomacy is the domain "where journalists temporarily assume the role of diplomats and serve as mediators in international negotiations" (Gilboa, 2001, p. 1) and "where journalists perform mediation roles within a journalistic context, for example during interviews" (Gilboa, 2005, p. 100).…”

“…In the last four decades, research studies on media diplomacy have not been extensive. Among the few are those by Ramaprasad (1983), Cohen (1986), Rawnsley (1995), Shinar (2000), and Gilboa (1998). As shown in the years of publication, the latest study was in 2000.…”